Coalition and Labor narrow industrial relations gap

IT'S the iron law of industrial relations: the contending sides
always exaggerate their differences. And since the media love a
stoush, they happily go along with the deception.

But despite all the bluster, the truth is that the gap between
the Government's WorkChoices and Labor's alternative has narrowed
significantly over the course of this year.

The first big lurch towards the centre came from John Howard, of
course, with his surprise decision in May to apply a "fairness
test" to Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) paying less than
$75,000 a year  something he and his ministers had spent the
previous year insisting was quite unnecessary because the original
arrangements were perfectly fair.

That amazing backdown, which drew some of the worst of
WorkChoices' fangs, has hardly registered on the public's
consciousness because it's had so little discussion.

And it's had little discussion because it's suited neither Mr
Howard's opponents nor his supporters to draw attention to it. In
the recent Econtech report's discussion of the WorkChoices changes,
it rated just a sentence.

Mr Howard's most vehement supporter on WorkChoices, the
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was bitterly opposed
to the fairness test, a reversion to a form of the previously
abolished no- disadvantage test.

I'd like to have seen Econtech commissioned to estimate the
extent to which WorkChoices' claimed benefits to the economy have
been diminished by the belated decision to worry about
fairness.

Last week it was Kevin Rudd's turn to take a lurch centre-wards.
And what an enthusiastic job he did of it. It's now clear that,
despite his opponents' reluctance to admit it, Mr Rudd would retain
significant elements of WorkChoices.

Consider the list. Its restrictions on unions' right of entry to
the workplace will be retained. Secondary boycotts will remain
illegal.

Workers' right to strike will remain tightly constrained, while
employers will retain their right to lock workers out. Decisions to
strike will still have to be made by a cumbersome secret
ballot.

The closed shop, union preference clauses and strike pay will
stay outlawed, as will the imposition of bargaining fees on
non-union members. Industry-wide strikes in support of pattern
bargaining will remain illegal.

It will continue to be the case that collective agreements need
not involve a union. Key conditions will continue to be set by
legislation rather than by awards.

Two novel measures are the decision to allow common law
individual contracts for workers earning more than $100,000 a year
to be independent of awards, and the requirement that awards and
collective agreements permit individuals to request flexible
working hours or other conditions.

Then we come to the question of timing. All changes will be
delayed until the beginning of 2010, while the award system is
being simplified. The Australian Building and Construction
Commission will be retained until 2010 and existing AWAs will be
allowed to run their (up to five-year) course.

So much for the disreputable contention on which the widely
advertised Econtech modelling is based: that Mr Rudd would reverse
all industrial relations reform, going back to include Paul
Keating's in 1993.

It would be wrong, however, to conclude that the narrowing of
differences between the parties leaves Labor proposing only minor
changes to WorkChoices.

Mr Rudd's goal has been to get more fairness back into the
system while retaining as much flexibility as possible 
provided the flexibility cuts both ways, of course.

And the key to achieving fairness is to recognise the gross
imbalance in bargaining power between an employer and an individual
employee. The whole (unadmitted) point of WorkChoices has been to
swing bargaining power the employers' way by separating individual
workers from the support of their fellows and reducing their
support from the state.

It did this by making it easy for employers to push workers onto
AWAs, by starting a process that would make awards irrelevant and
by hogtying the unions to discourage workers from bargaining
collectively.

So the key to Labor's proposed changes is to get rid of AWAs and
restore collective bargaining (with or without unions) as the
primary vehicle for negotiation between bosses and workers at the
enterprise level.

To this Labor would add state protection of workers' interests
by restoring a modified award system as the basic safety net, with
all agreements to be tested against the relevant award (apart from
common law individual contracts for those earning more than
$100,000 a year).

The award system would be simplified, however, with the
thousands of awards reduced to a smaller number and permitted to
cover only 10 "allowable matters". Awards would supplement the 10
"minimum employment standards" imposed by legislation.

Labor's other main change would be to restore the unfair
dismissal law for firms employing fewer than 100 workers, but with
a simpler dispute resolution process and with the probation period
for those workers employed by firms with fewer than 15 workers
extended to 12 months.

The parties' differences may have narrowed on industrial
relations, but it still shouldn't be too hard to see which party
better represents your interests rather than the other side's.